Dysphagia ebooks (PDF documents)

I'm really impressed with Pdf Search Engine. 

This morning I entered the search term {dysphagia} and obtained 48 results. I opened and quickly skimmed each PDF document. Here are the ones (12)  I tagged and saved to Connotea or Delicious (more about these tools in a separate post):

Resources for the health care professional

• Identification and Management of Dysphagia in Children with Neurological Impairment
• Identification and Management of Dysphagia in Adults with Neurological Impairment
  
• A Canadian Success Story for Stroke Patients with Dysphagia
  
• CASLPA Position Paper on Dysphagia in Adults
• Management of patients with stroke: Identification and management of dysphagia
• Rehabilitation medicine: 2. Diagnosis of dysphagia and its nutritional management for stroke patients
• Formal Dysphagia Screening Protocols Prevent Pneumonia

Education handouts for the patient/client

• Dysphagia � When It is Hard to Swallow
• Dysphagia Pureed Diet
• Dysphagia Diet Level I (Pureed)
• Dysphagia Diet Level II (Mechanically Altered)
• Dysphagia Diet Level III (Advanced)

Image credit: Head and neck overview from SEER's Web-based Training Modules.

PDF Search Engine

I use Google.ca & Google Scholar more than any other search engines, partly from habit but mostly because they yield exactly what I'm looking for within the first few results. (For searching the professional, evidence-based literature, though, I prefer OVID, which is available through my workplace.)

This past week, I've been trying other search engines. The first one I'm going to share with you is PDF Search Engine, which is powered by Google. As the name implies, it searches for PDF (and only  PDF) documents.

Yesterday afternoon I conducted searches using various food- and nutrition-related terms. Each search yielded more then 3 dozen results with several pertinent to my clinical practice and/or interests.

Here are selected results (the search term I used is in the curly brackets):

{diet} Gluten-Free Diet Guide for Families,
Pureed Diet

{nutrition} Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases

{nutrient} Nutrient Value of Some Common Foods (2008 edition)

{food} Food for thought,
Food and Mood  (eating guidelines for people with mental illness)

{food security} Urban Agriculture and Community Food Security in the United States ...

I wasn't using the tool for focused searching -- I was just browsing at the end of a workday when my eyes were too tired for reading and my brain was too tired to do any thinking. But in one 15-minute session I found a half-dozen resources worth saving for future reference.

Nutrition Screening Tools (continued)

Usually when there is a several-day gap between posts, I've been working on a writing-intensive, detail-oriented project at work and I'm not able to face the computer screen in the evening. Well, that's my excuse this week.

Finally, though, today I submitted the draft (next-to-final?) version of the care pathway appendix and thought I'd share it with you because the references are so valuable. I listed them in my previous post but I've reorganized the list and added some additional reference information and web links. I hope you find the list useful in your practice.

Link to PDF document: Nutrition Screening Tools (draft)

Nutrition Screening Tools

Isn't it a lovely feeling to find exactly what you need when you're not actively looking for it? And equally sweet to unexpectedly find something you thought you'd lost? Last Friday, I was browsing the Table of Contents of the latest (August 2008) Nutrition in Clinical Practice, not looking for anything in particular, and was thrilled to find several articles on nutrition risk screening -- just what I need to complete my contribution to the interdisciplinary acute stroke pathway. Then, yesterday afternoon I wrote a post with links to online articles -- and clicked on "cancel" instead of "save & close". Oh no! I thought I lost the entire post. Today, I was delighted and surprised to see it reappear!  I think from now on, though,  I may write some of my rough drafts on paper.....

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Last week I discovered recently-published articles on nutrition screening that will help me complete the nutrition appendix for a new acute stroke care clinical pathway.

Before you begin clicking on the links I've listed below, I should let you know that to read some of the full-text articles, you will need a personal, or institutional subscription (fortunately, I have the latter). The abstracts are all free to read online, though.

The reference list begins with the key review article and continues with links to the six tools the article describes:

Nutrition screening tools for hospitalized patients  Nutr Clin Pract 2008; 23, 373.

The Tools:

• MUST The development, validity and reliability of a nutrition screening tool based on the recommendations of the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (BAPEN)  (free full-text PDF article)

• MNA The Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and its use in grading the nutritional status of elderly patients

• NRS 2002 Nutritional Risk Screening (NFS 2002): a new method based on analysis of controlled clinical trials (free full-text PDF article)

• SNAQ Development and validation of a hospital screening tool for malnutrition: the short nutritional assessment questionnaire (SNAQ) (free full-text PDF article)

• MST Development of a valid and reliable malnutrition screening tool for adult acute care hospital patients

• SGA (Subjective Global Assessment)  {original article}  {review articles 1. 2.}
  

Discovery Thursday: HealthNews Reviews

I found another gold nugget today by searching the ResourceShelf archives:

HealthNews Reviews

HealthNewsReview.org reviews news stories that make a therapeutic claim about:
• Specific treatments
• Procedures
• Investigational drugs or devices
• Vitamins or nutritional supplements
• Diagnostic and screening tests

A multi-disciplinary team of reviewers from journalism, medicine, health services research and public health assesses the quality of the stories using a standardized rating system. Stories are graded and critiques are published on this website.

This website is modeled, in large part, upon the pioneering effort begun by an Australian team that launched the Media Doctor Australia website in 2004. We are grateful to David Henry and the Media Doctor team for sharing their ideas and perspectives with us. The Australian effort has also been the inspiration for a Media Doctor Canada site, whose publisher, Alan Cassels, has been very helpful in guiding us.

You can either begin browsing and reading the site from the home page or search for  reviews by rating, keyword, news organization or date.

Perhaps you recently read or heard about this Wall Street Journal article on the fat versus carb debate and wondered if it was reporting the research accurately, completely and with balance. Here's an excerpt from the HealthNewsReviews' evalution of the article:

Does the Story

[Criterion #4]Evaluate the quality of evidence? - SATISFACTORY
This article receives high marks for accurate presentation of medical evidence.   This article devoted enough space to adequately cover the study methodology, e.g. the study setting, participant characteristics, calories and composition of each of the three diets, etc., which is not always provided in the such stories.  This article did a thorough job in presenting detailed results of the three diets for several outcomes in addition to weight loss: blood lipid profiles (LDL "bad cholesterol", HDL "good cholesterol", triglycerides), blood sugar levels, and adherence to the diets.

[Criterion #9]Use independent sources and identify conflicts of interest? - SATISFACTORY
This study accurately summarized the results of the New England Journal of Medicine article on weight loss with three popular diets.  This article provided a good balance of commentary by independent experts representing alternative opinions and interpretation of the results.

You can read this complete review here.

Because HealthNews Reviews monitors only major US media news stories, if you live and/or practice in Australia or Canada, you probably also will want to check out Media Doctor Australia and Media Doctor Canada.

Addendum (09 August): Sophie, who writes the healthy, sustainable, tasty and lovely-to-look-at Mostly Eating has provided this useful link for UK readers: Behind the Headlines.

Thank you, Sophie.